On Tuesday, Tulsi Lake -- one of the seven lakes that supply water to Mumbai, overflowed on Tuesday at around 12 noon. Tulsi is one of the smallest lakes which contributes one percent of total water storage that is supplied to the city. The lake supplies an average of 18 million litres (1.8 crore litres) of water per day.
The lake with a useful / potable water storage capacity of 8046 million litres, overflowed on July 12, last year. In 2018, it overflowed on July 9, on August 14 in 2017 and in 2016 on July 19.
The catchment area of the lake in the last few days received a good amount of rainfall, and hence it started overflowing, said and official from the water supply department of the BMC. The official added, the water that overflows from Tulsi flows into Vihar lake.
Both Tulsi lake and Vihar lake are located within the densely forested Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). Apart from these two lakes, Bhatsa, Tansa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna and Modak Sagar provide water to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Powai lake that overflowed on July 6, the water from its dam is supplied for industrial purposes mostly as it is too shallow to store potable water.
Combined live storage across all lakes is 31.81 % as on July 28 evening, it was 69.62% same time last year. As on July 27 morning the storage of water in the lakes is 4.73 lakh million litres [Annual requirement: 1,447,363 million litres, Total capacity of lakes: 1,778,000 million litres]. The city gets 3,850 million litres per day and the current water stock can last for maximum 121 days. While two-and-a-half months of monsoon remain, the forecast for scarce rain is creating the possibility of water scarcity leading to water cuts. " If we do not receive a good rain increasing the lake levels, we will have to announce 10 to 15 percent of water cut. However we are reviewing the situation currently and it will be too early to speak on the issue. As of now we have water stocked for at least next three to four months," said a senior BMC official.
Meanwhile, Several parts of Mumbai and its surrounding areas reported significant rain activity since Tuesday evening, some areas witnessed rains from Monday evening itself.
The heavy showers since Tuesday evening, led to water logging in several low lying areas including chronic flooding spots in the city like Hindmata in Dadar, Dadar TT and a few places in Wadala and King Circle etc.
The Indian meteorological department (IMD) has predicted isolated heavy showers for Mumbai, Thane and surrounded regions for 48 hours. "Satellite and Radar images are indicating cloudy weather over Maharashtra coast," said K Hosalikar, Deputy Director General of IMD (Western region.)
The rainfall recorded in 24 hours between Monday to Tuesday morning by the IMD's Colaba weather observatory was 57.2 mm and while Santacruz observatory recorded 28.6 mm rainfall.
According to independent meteorologists and weather enthusiasts, light rain activities are expected to continue over Mumbai and suburbs until August 1st. Thereafter there may be a significant increase in rain and shower activities. "Moderate showers with one or two intense spells are expected between August 2nd and 5th over Mumbai and suburbs," Skymet website has quoted.
It said: "We do not expect heavy rains between August 2nd and 5th overMumbai, but temperatures are expected to decrease and will be in the higher twenties. These rainactivities may lead to waterlogging in the low lying area of the city." Skymet predictedheavy rain alert for Mumbaibetween August 2 and 5.
